55 paise a day is TN budget for anganwadi kid's meal

CHENNAI: Fifty paise is the lowestlegal tender in the country. Add to that five paise, and you get the dailyallocation for food for an underprivileged child in ananganwadi.Tamil Nadu ranks first in implementing the integrated child development scheme (ICDS), but 55 paise is all thats given towards purchase of vegetables, fuel and condiments per child a day in an anganwadi in the state. Of this, 25 paise is for vegetables,19 paise for fuel and 11 paise for condiments. As for rice and dal, government provides it from the PDS."Till about three months ago, it was only 44 paise per day per child. When we said it was impossible to manage with that,they increased the allocation to 55 paise," says R Selvi, an anganwadi worker who gets a monthly salary of Rs 5,000. Her anganwadi has 25 children, for whom thegovernment gives Rs 6.25 per day for vegetables. There are days when up to 40children come to the centre,but the rations are not increased.TheICDS is a centrally-sponsored child nutrition scheme implemented by stategovernments. It addresses health and nutrition needs of children under the ageof six through a network of centres known as anganwadis, but inflation has cutinto the quality of its meals. In the 2010-11 budget, 924 crore was provided toTN for nutrition programmes. But the ICDS alone has 11,26,536 beneficiaries."We pay from our pockets to meet the expenses," says Selvi. But thatdoesn’t always work. So when vegetable prices go up, they cut down on thegreens.